The Sunday Tribune (May
14) contained an excellent account by Mr Harihar Swarup
of Ms Asma Jahangirs struggles against the
stranglehold of obscurantism and Islamic fundamentalism
in Pakistan.

Mr Swarup has cited,
among others, the case of Salamat Masih, who was
sentenced to death for scribbling blasphemous words on
the walls of a mosque, despite his being illiterate. He
adds that Masih was acquitted on appeal.
Kindly permit me to complete the record. For this purpose
I can do no better than quote from the Readers
Digest of May, 2000 (Pakistans war on Christians).

In February, 1995,
Justice Arif Bhatti overturned the death sentences on the
two survivors. But posters printed by an extremist group
soon called for the public lynching of Salamat and
Rehmat, and they had to be smuggled out of the country.

On October 10,
1997, Justice Bhatti was shot dead by a gunman in his
Lahore law office.

T. S. BROCA
SAS Nagar

Alternative medicines

The article entitled India & search for
alternative medicinesby
Mr M.S.N. Menon (May 12), made interesting and
informative reading benefiting particularly those who are
under the sweeping influence of the modern system of
medicines, which, as has been pointed out by the author,
do not provide answer to all the health problems faced by
all the people but on the contrary complicate the same
through after-effects or addiction etc.

The age-old popularity
of the ayurvedic and unani or the traditional systems of
medicines in India was eroded during British rule since
the alien rulers who had imported the European or modern
system called allopathy for their own benefits owed
political responsibility towards the establishment and
popularity of their system in this country,
for which they had forced that system upon our people.

Very few readers may
know that during the Governor-Generalship of Lord
Dalhousie, a new allopathic hospital was started at
Allahabad and all the people, including women living in
seclusion, were forced to visit the hospital while the
Indian vaids and hakims were forbidden to prescribe any
medicine or to treat any patient. That order issued by
the English rulers at Allahabad has caused such a
commotion amongst the masses that the officials were
compelled to withdraw the order. The natives
did not oppose any such move so vehemently everywhere
with the result that such an official policy affected the
latter system badly during pre-independence era.Things
have not changed even after independence.

SAWARN SINGH
SANEHI
Shahpur (Phillaur)

Women
in panchayats

Though the 73rd
Amendment has ensured adequate representation of women at
different levels of panchayati raj institutions in
Haryana but there seems to be no end to their problems. A
large percentage of women elected to these bodies feel
themselves inferior to men due to their illiteracy and
ignorance. The illiteracy inhibits their decision-making
roles and they are controlled either by their husbands or
other male members of the family. The male members act as
proxy-sarpanches or panches. The decisions of these women
are largely influenced by their spouses.

The meetings of these
bodies are attended by their husbands or their relatives.
There is virtually no shift of power and it is still in
the hands of the males. During the March elections in
Haryana, in majority of cases where women contestants
were illiterate, it was noticed that only the male
members of these contestants were canvassing while they
themselves were nowhere on the scene. Many women withdrew
from elections because they felt that there was no
financial gain in this venture and moreover the males are
not going to accept their changing roles. Thus, by and
large, the results of the elections are satisfactory but
to achieve the desired results of women empowerment, some
serious efforts are urgently required, Some suggestions
are as follows:

First education of women
is very important and it has to be ensured that only the
educated women come to these institutions.

Second, all elected
members of these institutions must be given remuneration
as is given in case of elected members of state
assemblies and Parliament.

Third, provision must be
made to stop the proxy-participation by husbands and
other relatives and finally, provision should be made for
training and orientation of women regarding the working
of the institutions. The universities and other
educational institutions can be associated in these
endeavours.

D. P. SINGH MOR
Patiala

Another
blow

In the Chandigarh
Calling item on May 8, Another Blow,
the date of death of the legendary singer K.L. Saigal has
been inadvertently mentioned as January 18, 1947. He died
on January 18, 1946, at Jalandhar.

Though K.L. Saigal has
made a mark in the Hindi film music because of his
melodious and mellifluous voice, yet he did not encourage
his children to adopt singing as a profession despite the
fact that they had inherited singing from their father.
In fact Saigal himself has found it hard to make both
ends meet with whatever he earned from singing. That is
why he started acting in films. Not only Saigal but other
singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Geeta Dutt,
Talat Mahmood, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar Surrender etc., also
had to act in films as they could get only pittance by
singing in the films. As they felt quite insecure in the
singing profession, none of them encouraged his/her
children to adopt singing as a profession. This is true
of the children of Mohd Rafi and Talat Mahmood.

What a sorry state of
affairs that despite the presence of the gifted children
of renowned singers, the music industry is facing a
draught of talent and calibre in the realm of music.

M. L. DHAWAN
Chandigarh

We
are 100 crore

It was widely reported
in all leading news papers of the country as we touched
100 crore on May 12,2000, the second largest population
in world, next only to our gigantic neighbour China.
Keeping in view the annual growth rate, India will take
over China in the next 50 years.

Population explosion
puts extensive pressure on already limited civic
amenities viz; water supply, public transport, housing,
medical facilities etc. The fragmentation of land in
rural areas is progressively reducing the size of land
holding, thus increasing the rural poverty. The incidence
of poverty can be witnessed in the most horrifying manner
in rural India. Our buffer stock is overflowing with
grains (the apex agricultural body, FCI is in dire
necessity of additional storage space) but vast chunk of
population has no financial resources to procure grains,
thus getting dragged in a never-ending cycle of abject
poverty.

The other gory
manifestation of poverty is unemployment, the great
stigma on body fabric of country, unemployment on a large
scale generates broken homes, civic unrest, law &
order problem. It puts great pressure on law enforcing
agencies. Govt organisations have no concrete policy of
population control. The significance of small family will
only be realised when education is available in rural
India.